Kids watching bullfights “are not affected” says TV Regulator

Portugal’s Media Regulatory Authority has issued an ‘unfavorable’ opinion on a Left Bloc proposal to delay TV broadcasts of bullfighting until after the children have gone to bed.

The ERC considers that these transmissions are, “an integral part of the Portuguese cultural heritage,” and has opined that they do not affect children.

Bullfights shown on TV, “are not even likely to have a negative influence on the personality formation of children and adolescents,” and the ERC sees no, “legal impediments to such transmissions.”

The Left Bloc MP, Maria Manuel Rola, slammed the regulator’s opinion, saying, “it is quite partial, even abusing the interpretation of the Constitution itself, as by saying that Portuguese bullfighting is an integral part of the Portuguese cultural heritage, which the State has the duty to promote and protect, is to adopt an ideological position regarding bullfighting.”

The ERC was called upon to pronounce on a Left Bloc bill intending to limit “bullfighting spectacles, as they are likely negatively to influence the formation of the personality of children and adolescents” and selected programming should be transmitted only between 22:30 and 06:00.

The regulator disagrees, saying any such restriction, “would represent an unwarranted restriction of the freedom of television operators’ programming.”

Maria Manuel Rola, said the Left Bloc does not want bullfighting broadcasts to be stopped, just transmitted at times that protect children,” and concluded that the ERC seems hopelessly incapable of ever being satisfied.

In the explanatory memorandum appended to the Left Bloc proposal, it states that, “there are several academic studies that have demonstrated, on a sustained basis, the negative effects of children and adolescents attending bullfights in the formation of their personality,” giving as an example, a study from the Department of Clinical Psychology of Madrid.